Quotes from Wislawa Szymborska

You know, I'm worried about Szymborska. I wish she would stop smoking.

Even the worst book can give us something to think about.

This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.

I like being near the top of a mountain. One can't get lost here.

You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.

I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.

Someone sits at a table or lies on a sofa while staring motionless at a wall or ceiling. Once in a while this person writes down seven lines, only to cross out one of them 15 minutes later, and then another hour passes, during which nothing happens. Who could stand to watch this kind of thing?

Unfortunately, poetry is not born in noise, in crowds, or on a bus. There have to be four walls and the certainty that the telephone will not ring. That's what writing is all about.

Poets yearn, of course, to be published, read, and understood, but they do little, if anything, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind.

In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.

Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.

Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there's no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

Somewhere out there the world must have an end.

Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and later try hard to make them seem light.

Sometimes I really have a spiritual need to say something more general about the world, and sometimes something personal.

I don't believe I have a mission. Sometimes I really have a spiritual need to say something more general about the world, and sometimes something personal.

It's just not easy to explain to someone else what you don't understand yourself.

At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn't possible to save mankind.

When I was young I had a moment of believing in the Communist doctrine. I wanted to save the world through Communism. Quite soon I understood that it doesn't work, but I've never pretended it didn't happen to me.

Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

I'm fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.

Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.

I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.